To commit oneself to a life in the theater, as has Donna Blue Lachman, means investing one's time and energy and soul, whatever that might mean, in something that will ever remain a mystery to those of us not in theater. As it was once put to me by the gifted actress and director Amy Morton, "Only crazy people want to be actors."

Lachman has been an actor. Also a playwright, director and anything else that one can do in the theater. She founded the Blue Rider Theater Company in Pilsen in 1984, following a decade or so of what might charitably be called "learning experiences" after leaving her native Skokie.

Those included attending tiny, artsy Shimer College — when it was in Mount Carroll, Ill. — where she was bewitched by her first taste of avant-garde theater; living in a California ashram; playing a character called "Blue the Clown" on the streets of San Francisco; backpacking around the world to study with directors she had only heard of before; living in Haiti and studying Vodou; and traveling to Katmandu in Nepal to do God knows what.

Somewhere along the line, she worked at improvisation with improv legends Paul Sills and Del Close.

At Blue Rider, some of these pursuits, passions and lessons were transformed into memorable productions that she directed, conceived and/or starred in, such as "Frida: The Last Portrait," about Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Lachman earned awards, hosted a television show and was awarded fellowships and commissions.

She eventually left Chicago and closed Blue Rider in 2000, moving away with her then-husband, the designer and artist Rick Tuttle. She accepted a job teaching theater at La Lumiere, a La Porte, Ind., boarding school, and settled into a lovely four-acre home near the town of Three Oaks in Michigan. She bought the land, which had been in her family for years, and lovingly tended to its pines trees, garden and swimming hole. She also hosted retreats for friends and strangers, "strangers who became friends," she says.

A few years later, in 2005, she said, "I am so happy here."

The intervening years were filled with more theatrical ventures and some personal drama, including a divorce and leaving her full-time teaching position. But she is still living in that place and seems more content and cheery than ever.

She is about to stage her latest production. It is called "Mixed Nuts," which is described on its promotional posters thusly: "An assortment of salty scenes from the lives of your seasoned fellow citizens, (it) brings boomers together to fearlessly explore our lives, our community and our place in the world through improvisation."

"It's really one of the most exciting projects I've done in a long time," she says. "I am working with people from 50 to almost 80, and they are telling it like it is. And they've got it all."

By "all," she means such topics as Woodstock, race relations, discrimination against gays — and sex.

"When we first started, I thought there would be a lot of conversation, a lot of material about health insurance, various ailments, the fear of death," Lachman says. "But on the contrary, and wonderfully, there was a lot about sex, Match.com, more about sex. Their lives are filled with feisty dreams."

She initially placed ads in local papers asking for people with no acting experience to audition for her new play. More than 20 showed up. They were asked by Lachman to just talk about their lives. "Tell me a story," she said by way of direction.

From four such meetings, Lachman chose 12 people for the production, a number that diminished, people having other commitments, to eight. "The perfect eight," she says.

For the past few weeks she and her cast have been rehearsing the show in a storefront in Three Oaks, a place of such creative energy and appeal that it provided the inspiration and setting for best-selling Chicago novelist Blue Balliett's "The Danger Box."

"The cast spent time talking about issues, and we had a lovely young woman transcribing everything they said. From that 250-page transcript I began to create scenes, edit the material, add some of myself into the mix and mold it into a play."

The three men and five women (with Lachman having a cameo) will perform the one-act play one night only, June 29, at 7 p.m. at The Acorn Theater (acorntheater.com), the scene of many previous Lachman shows and where she recently began teaching an original series of improvisational games and exercises.

Kim Clark and David Fink founded the Acorn a dozen years ago and have staged a Lachman play every year for almost that long.

Says Clark: "We are proud to have her back with what we know will be a terrific show, as all of her works on our stage have been."

Says Fink: "Using her vast knowledge of theater to help them create and perform a play, she has accomplished something amazing. There will be a lot of truth, love and honesty in the show."

Says Lachman: "Many of my Acorn shows have been of the one-woman variety. This is a wonderful change. I really like working with nonactors. Whenever I work with actor actors, it takes me a lot of time to get rid of all of the things they have learned so they can be natural."

In 1987, Lachman was named one of the "87 People To Watch in 87," a list compiled by Tribune writers and editors. Some on that list have been successful. Others have faded into obscurity. Some have died. Of them all, it is hard to imagine that any have had as much creative fun and worthwhile adventure as Lachman has. As she simply puts it, "Life is beautiful."

There is often no justice in history. If there were, then the name Jens Jensen would be as familiar to us as those of Al Capone, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey and some of the others who put their stamp on the city for a short time before moving on.

Lollapalooza 2015 is underway in Chicago's Grant Park. Join our coverage of the three-day music festival, as Paul McCartney, Sam Smith, Metallica and Florence and the Machine headline. On the Tribune app? Click here to see the live blog.